SC appoints panel to examine school syllabus in Tamil Nadu

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has appointed an expert panel to examine the syllabus/textbooks for school children in Tamil Nadu sought to be altered by the Jayalalithaa government. A vacation bench comprising Justices BS Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar on Tuesday passed the order on the plea of J Jayalalithaa-led state government challenging legality of the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education Act passed by the previous government.

The court, however, said that the Act will continue to be implemented for Class I and VI during the present academic session. The apex court said the expert panel to be headed by the state chief secretary will submit its report within three weeks to the Madras High Court which will pass the order. The bench was hearing the Special Leave Petition of the state government, challenging interim order of the Madras High Court.

It had directed the present government to continue with implementation of the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education Act, 2010. The Act, introduced in 2010-2011 by the DMK government, had introduced a common curriculum for school children till Class X. Prior to introduction of the Act, Tamil Nadu had different streams like matriculation, state board, oriental and Anglo-Indian .

However, Jayalalaithaa government, immediately after assuming power, has introduced Section 3 in the Act on May 22 to keep in abeyance implementation of the Act on the ground that several textbooks had controversial chapters, including laudatory references to DMK written by Kanimozhi. The High Court had, however, asked the state to implement the Act since the government had reportedly spent . 200 crore for printing about 9 crore text books and amending the syllabus by deleting the alleged pro-DMK references.